History

The origins of the "Community Song Cycle" began 10 years ago in the
Salt Lake Pagan community. At this time, Lady Raven was in charge of a Salt Lake Sabbat circle called Quickbeam. It was customary for the "Shieldbearer"
(person in charge of Quickbeam for a year and a day) to have a goal for
their wheel (year of sabbats). One of Lady Raven's goals was to bring back the
rich musical tradition that had once been part of Quickbeam celebrations.
To facilitate this goal, she began Pagan Pipes, a song and chant group that
met regularly to learn and practice the community songs. Dorian Owen, a
friend of Lady Raven's and fellow Pagan community member, was the woman whom coined the name "Pagan Pipes". The group met at Aisling's, drawing on the Barding circle tradition that Aisling began in her home. Holly and Beverly,
fellow community members, later took responsibility for Pagan Pipes and
hosted the circle for several years.

To help Pagan Pipes and those community members whom were interested, Lady Raven got together with 3 other local ladies, Gwen Caine, Kristen Gygi and Aisling, to record the original "Quickbeam Song Cycle". Recording was done at Studio Chez Lapin by the fabulous studio master, Scott Simons. The
format was simple, with the intention of teaching the chants. A chant was
started by one person, then the others joined in. It was intentionally
given an unpolished style so folks would feel comfortable joining in and
learn by singing along. At the end of Lady Raven's wheel, Midsummer 1994, she and Scott hand-recorded and hand coloured 500 cassette copies (burning out 2 double cassette machines) to be distributed in the Salt Lake community.
All cassettes were gifted to the community free of charge.

A booklet of the chant lyrics accompanied all of the tapes. The first
cassettes were gifted at Lady Raven's elevation to 3rd degree that August, 1994. The next batch were gifted to a local shamanic/sweat lodge community. The 3rd offering was gifted to all whom attended the 1994 Quickbeam Yule. In
the following years, most of the cassettes were distributed with the final
70 or so given to Coop when he finished his wheel as Quickbeam's
Shieldbearer. He passed these on to his successor.

Quickbeam Circle is no longer a part of the Salt Lake Community. Public
Sabbat celebrations continue with SunStave Circle. The original cassettes
have worn out, been lost, or have passed to the great beyond. Stories are
told about the song cycle. New songs and traditions have come into the
community, as Salt Lake continues with its rich musical traditions.

Just in time for the Yule holidays and its (song cycle) almost 10 year anniversary, the Utah Pagan Clergy Association is re-releasing the song cycle under a new name. It is now called The Community Song Cycle. In addition to the original recordings, a few have been added for your learning pleasure. The
Utah Pagan Clergy Association is offering these on our website in MP3
format. You may download these for your own use only for the purpose of
learning the chants or for your listening pleasure.

Sound recording copyrights are held by Shapeshifting Inc., all rights reserved. Song, music and chant lyric copyrights are retained by the authors, again, all rights reserved. Unauthorized duplications are a violation of applicable laws.

All efforts have been made to credit the original authors. If
additional information is known please contact us so that we may make any
necessary corrections. This work is a community service project sponsored
by the UPCA and is not for commercial distribution.